If I could sum up the message I heard most often about romance as a young woman in one word, it would be this:
Wait!
My youth pastor told me to wait. My parents told me to wait. The Christian books I read about love told me to wait. And somewhere along the line, I started thinking that God’s best was for romance, love, and sex to stay just out of my reach.
Every single good thing in our lives, including love, romance, and sex, are gifts given to us by a God who loves us.
Please don’t twist my words like some sort of Valentine balloon sculpture. Certainly, part of surrendering our lives to Christ is giving Him ownership of everything, including our love lives. Often that means we must wait for His perfect timing for romance. It also means that no human love story can fulfill us more than our relationship with Christ can. Also, God designed sex as a gift reserved for marriage. But that doesn’t mean that God is anti-romance or that romantic love is off-limits for girls who love Jesus. In fact, the Bible teaches just the opposite.
Romance Was God’s Idea
In Genesis, just after the creation of Adam, we find God as the very first matchmaker.
Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” . . . And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought to the man (2:18–22).
God had already given Adam so much—a beautiful home to live in, animals to love and care for, intimacy with Himself. And yet God noticed that the piece of the puzzle that was missing was romantic love between a man and a woman.
Long before Match.com, romance was God’s idea!
And just in case you’ve convinced yourself that God’s vision of romantic love is totally unromantic . . .
Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh (Gen. 2:24).
All along, God’s plan was for the relationship between a man and a woman to be world-shifting and life-changing.
God Is the Giver of Romance
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change (James 1:17).
Every single good thing in our lives, including love, romance, and sex, are gifts given to us by a God who loves us. Since He created us and created the gifts, He gets to decide how they are best used, but you can trust Him in that process because . . .
God Loves to Give Good Gifts
Just like a valentine who can’t wait to watch their love unwrap the perfect gift, God delights in giving you good things.
“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matt. 7:11).
Whatever gifts God hands you to unwrap in this department including:
- Marriage
- Singleness
- Falling in love this moment
- Not a guy in sight.
You can trust that the gift is good and the Giver is good.
No One is More Romantic Than God
Take a quick pass of Psalm 107. See if you notice a theme.
Six times in a single chapter, one word is used to describe God’s love for us—steadfast! His love for you is intense, unwavering, faithful. I love how the Jesus Storybook Bible describes God’s “Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love.” Swoon!
You can’t outgive God, and you can’t outlove Him. He is not anti-romance. He is the standard setter for it!
He pursued you when you didn’t want to be pursued (Rom. 5:8). He loved you when you didn’t love Him back (1 John 4:19). He woos you with loving kindness (Jer. 31:3). He will not change His mind about you (Num. 23:19).
You can’t outgive God, and you can’t outlove Him. He is not anti-romance. He is the standard setter for it!
(If you’re still not sure that’s true, I’d love for you to read Song of Solomon and Hosea. Both books are jam-packed with romantic language about God’s love for you!)
If you’ve ever gotten the message that God is anti-romance or that His plan is to keep love just beyond your reach, think again. Romance was His idea, and He is the ultimate romantic.
Written by: Erin Davis
